Is [language] worth learning?

This is a really short response to a question I’ve stumbled across twice today, “Is [language] worth learning?” All languages have some worth, but they are all good in different areas. It all depends on what you want to do and how much you want to learn about programming.

C is very good if you want to learn how computers work without delving into the inaccessible mess that is assembly programming. However, it takes quite a bit of effort and understanding to do a lot with C.

Java is a good choice if you want to get into computer science and work with algorithms and data structures since the language has a lot of support for this in its standard library. However, I think the language is quite boring and doesn’t leave much room to quickly hack together things.

Python is probably the best balance between accessibility for beginners and features for more complex projects. It’s also multi-paradigm which means it supports several different programming methods. If someone is just starting out with programming, Python is almost probably the way to go and Learn Python the Hard Way is probably the best way to learn the language.